Sirdouglas' O gauge

[sir douglas]

the van is on hold for a few days as im going down to that there warley for the first time, im going with Green ayre

[844fan]

ive mentioned this idea before but now ive started building it.

 

while researching North British wagons for a friend in an LNER wagon book i came across a brake van i would like to build, a number of short brake vans ran on the cowlairs rope incline in Glasgow before being rebuilt after the incline changed to loco traction

http://www.nbrstudygroup.co.uk/galleries/images_people/Cowlairs-Incline-45613.jpg

 

being rebuilt into covered brake vans like this

cowlairs brake (2).jpg

 

i really like the handrails and that they were only 12' 6" over bufferbeams with a 7' 3" wheelbase, today ive started drawing and making. the wheels and bearings are from wizard models, the whitemetal axleboxes are secondhand and cant remember, the drawing is partly done with the side view drawn from a flat side view in the book, the bufferbeams have been cut and drilled which sit next to the chassis drawing

brakevan NBR (1) by Sam, on Flickr

Sam once again you've shown me a amazing piece of rolling stock I must have for my CVR line. First the old van you inherited from a fine collection and with pide intend to keep it alive in his memory and now these little beauties. Can't wait to see more of the model as time permits and Rebecca looks great in her new green Livery I think her name sake would be proud.

[sir douglas]

i found out there was a whitemetal kit of the rebuilt version that im building but in 4mm, ive PM'ed an rmwebber that has one of these asking for a photo of the closed end and he is happy to do that but in a week, which i'm fine with. i cant build the body without a complete drawing and i need to see the closed end to complete the drawing, styrene strip has been bought at warley for the bodywork and a set of slaters buffer stocks glued on. in the meantime, i can do other things like do the last detailing jobs on the Kerr Stuart, Another Warley purchase was a set of brass castings from RTmodels which look like theyre supposed to be safety valves as the packet was un labeled but they look just right for the cylinder oil pots, also fitted is a whitemetal jack from S&Dmodels

 

the Narrow Planet plates should arrive soon as i got the dispatch email on saturday

 

and something i forgot to mention about the NER brakevan is that i need to add a brake column to one end of it,ihappen to have a whitemetal hand wheel with curved spokes that will look perfect

Edited September 11, 2019 by sir douglas

[sir douglas]

the plates arrived yesterday

 

the name of the Knowles is Skyrack, after the skyrack tree and the wapontake named after it in Leeds

 

Kerr Stuart works plates for Thunderchild

 

the name of the Manning wardle is Hestia, the greek goddess the accumulated parts for it, wheels, plunger pickups, bearings, gearbox screws, plates, brass crossheads from Wizard models, chimney, safety valve cover and a small plug. i have a choice of 3 motors but not decided yet which one

Edited March 30, 2021 by sir douglas

[sir douglas]

On the second timber dumb buffer, all the ironwork was finished earlier and a base coat of acrylic black to prime the wood

 

Edited March 30, 2021 by sir douglas

[sir douglas]

2 coats of crimson and waiting for it to dry before doing the ironwork

 

drawing the chassis for Hestia

Edited March 30, 2021 by sir douglas

[sir douglas]

tamiya matt for the ironwork, the red is a custom mixed made from an old Humbrol crimson with various little amounts of red and black to match the crimson on Jamie's locos for patching them up. im  drawing the lettering on paper to get it to avoid the chains but look right

 

the drawing for Hestia had to be partially redone a few times through mistakes and changing my mind on some of the measurements. i have a pair of redundant Hornby con rods that by chance are only a tiny bit too long so i redrew the right hand half of the drawing to push out the wheel and bufferbeam so the wheelbase matched the rods

 

to show the tiny difference

 

in the end  most of it got redrawn, playing about with what would look better and how im going to be putting it all together, the main thing thing is that if the hook spring will be above or below the footplate and if the bufferbeams will be fixed to the footplate or chassis, the main bufferblocks arent on yet but the inner ones are for inside framed wagons such as side tippers and chauldrons, i'd like to think that it was originally a contractor loco before moving to the Halfmoon Light railway

Edited March 30, 2021 by sir douglas

[sir douglas]

the frames cut last night and drilled this morning

a copy of the chassis was drawn and cut out, htis was clipped onto the frame piece, the outline cut outs were scored with a knife and the centres to be drilled were prodded through the paper with a drawing pin, after they were all pilot drilled with a 1mm and then a 2mm, they were opened up to the right sizes, the bigger ones being 7mm

 

the holes drilled for frame ovals were cut out and filed down. the end holes were countersunk on the relevant sides for the brass spacers, these are 22.5mm long and i got a pack of them from the collection of the late friend. After the wheels were cleaned up, they and the chassis was assembled, they wheels needed alot of mould flash cleaning off, and oddly they are not quartered to 90 degrees but i'd guees to somewhere around 60-70

 

next were the coupling rods, since the holes in the Hornby rods were too big in filed them with solder and held in by sandwhiched in by 2 pieces of thin rectangles of nickel which were then filed down to the right profile and the new holes were drilled through

 

 

Next is the cylinders which i have started the drawing for it with the cylinder centre lines

Edited March 30, 2021 by sir douglas

[sir douglas]

A first of 2 problems, the crosshead isnt big enough for the necessary 5mm space between the slide bars

 

and secondly, the front crank pin nut fouls the crosshead and connecting rod, this is fixable but will mean making new longer rods to clear it

Edited March 30, 2021 by sir douglas

[sir douglas]

With the above problems stalling the build, i decided to go back to wagons i havent touched for a while such as the LNWR cattle and the horsebox

 

The horsebox is going to be a GNR dia 352, just because it fits the chassis already built, i'm now sourcing a drawing of it and have 2 leads in a book and magazine to look into tomorrow

 

the chassis for the horsebox has carriage buffers and screw link couplings fitted

 

the sides are made from 2mm square styrene and built up directly on the drawing, i already have a drawing scaled down from a works drawing in a book but i redrew it to suit the styrene width

 

the planking cut and scribed

 

Planking glued on, the edges of the framework were scraped with the knife for the chamfers, then fitted to the chassis

Edited March 30, 2021 by sir douglas

[sir douglas]

For the ends, the planing is again a scribed sheet, this sits betwwen the corner timbers with the top piece of 2mm thick cut and filed to the roof curve and with squares cut out of the ends it can sit into the corner timbers, after the floor is put in annd painted, there will be a third rcurved piece across the middle to support the middle of the roof

 

building up the end vertical timbers

 

i now have photos of the closed end of the NB brake to work from

Edited March 30, 2021 by sir douglas

[airnimal]

Sir Douglas, it is good to see scratch building from one so young. Your cattle wagon looks excellent and will look forward to seeing it finished. We keep hearing that nobody scratch builds these days but i am glad you are proving the doubters wrong.

[sir douglas]

the information is falling into place all at once with the photos already mentioned and now i also have the drawing i need to build the horsebox

[sir douglas]

building up the ironwork

Edited March 30, 2021 by sir douglas

[sir douglas]

2 coats of grey

Edited March 30, 2021 by sir douglas

[sir douglas]

i havent got any sprung buffers to put on it so i'm temporarily using whitemetal ones until i can get them, the brass hook plates have been cut, drilled and stock on with super glue, hooks fitted and buffer stocks painted, sticking in lead strip to bring the wagon nearly up to weight but will leave the last few grams until after ive done the roof and brake gear

Edited March 30, 2021 by sir douglas

[sir douglas]

pivot mounting for the brake gear

 

brass rod for the shaft with styrene arm and link, the lever should be tapered but i cant be bothered, the pin rack is bent up out of brass strip

 

the brakegear was painted, the weight adjusted and the roof stuck on. I'm going call it done for now with just lettering and weathering to do some other time

Edited March 30, 2021 by sir douglas

[Ohmisterporter]

I like the way you crack on with things Sam. Obviously don't waste as much time trawling through rmewb as the rest of us.

[sir douglas]

a test run last night with Thunderchild down at the club, the horse box ran well considering its only a chassis and barely weighs anything, the red wagon jumpas around when being pushed, i think a wheel may be a bit wonky

Edited January 2, 2019 by sir douglas

[sir douglas]

scanned in the 4mm drawing of the GNR  horsebox in the book, and printed it out to 7mm, heres a jpeg copy of the plan

 

[sir douglas]

the aesthetic sides and the structural ends have been cut out and started working on one of the side, also shown are a pair of vents that were spare from the LMS van

 

the NB brake drawing is finished

 

the crimson dumb buffer has been named Redwall after the kids tv show

Edited January 2, 2019 by sir douglas

[sir douglas]

all i can be bothered for now was sorting the crossheads on Hestia. the brass crossheads i bought from Wizard are for slidebars closer together than what i want so by fling them down a little bit and soldering on new material to suite what i want

 

the crossheads have been filed down, the new slidebar slots are made from box section cut in half

 

the parts soldered together

 

i'm not able to make them into the correct MW style but at least ive filed them down so they're not so chunky

Edited January 2, 2019 by sir douglas

[sir douglas]

cut and filed slide bars yesterday

 

this morning the rods were taken off the replace the crankpins, there is nothing wrong with the slaters ones at all, its just i want to use a different kind that doesnt have the nuts sticking out to foul the crosshead, they are the same kind used on the Kerr Stuart, like the ones below but in brass, i cant remember who i got them from

http://www.scalelink.co.uk/acatalog/MCRNKPD.jpg

with the rods on the new crankpins i thought it would be a good time to paint the wheels before i went any further with the build, ive gone with the same olive green as J.Aspdin

Edited January 2, 2019 by sir douglas

[Ruston]

Could you not have just filed down the nuts on the Slaters crank pins? Always works for me.

[sir douglas]

i thought about it but thought that then the nut would have less thread inside to hold it in place with

 

drawn up the motion bracket and started scoring it onto the 1mm brass sheet, the cylinder elevation had to be redrawn to put the centres abit further apart which means that i'll need to make new cylinders, also drawn the side plan of the motion as many measurents have been changed slightly and needed a new drawing to check that they work before building it, i made a second drawing incase it didnt work and i still had the first drawing to go back to

Edited January 2, 2019 by sir douglas